"I s'pose it's a long way to your telephone, too."
"Telephone!" Peggy repeated. She looked at Miss Potts so blankly that Mary's caretaker had no alternative but to explain.
"Her pa had it put in for a surprise. It's right beside her bed, and the little thing it stands on moves 'round, so she can talk without any trouble. He thought it would be a comfort to her, for she could chat with all her friends, and sort of keep up with things."
"Why, yes," said Peggy, feeling uncomfortable. "I should think she'd get lots of fun out of it." She was remembering that Mary had called her up—it was weeks or months, or was it fully a year before—to tell her about the new telephone. There had been an eagerness in Mary's voice that she remembered vividly. Peggy had agreed that it was "splendid," without realizing just what this link with the outside world would mean to a girl shut out from so much.
Miss Potts indulged in an unmusical laugh. "Oh, yes," she said. "She gets lots of fun. Every now and then she gets a call. There's so many new girls on the telephone exchanges nowadays, that they're bound to give her number every little while. And then she tells 'em it's the wrong number and rings off."
Peggy's face was a study. "Do you mean that she—that no one—"
The aggressiveness suddenly disappeared from Miss Potts' manner. Her eyes filled with tears.
"It's the heart-breakingest thing I ever want to see," she cried. "She was so hopeful at first. As soon as that telephone was put in, she called up everybody she knew, to tell 'em about it. And then she'd lie there smiling, watching that phone, as if it was something out of a fairy book and was going to bring her all kinds of happiness."
Peggy's imagination was a vivid one. As Miss Potts spoke, she could almost see Mary's smiling, expectant face. A pang of sympathy stabbed her tender heart.